The MoFo Top 100 Musicals Countdown

This sounds a lot like what I would say. It was just a toss-up between Cabaret and All That Jazz being my #1 (apparently All That Jazz won that toss-up). I actually thought Cabaret would make the top five though (not on quality alone. It should have been, well, in the top 2 according to my ballot), but because there seems to be four voting contingencies: classic Hollywood musical, modern jukebox musicals, Disney musicals, non-traditional musicals, and this seemed like the obvious choice for the last one. It's just amazingly good as a movie, the musical numbers are clearly musical numbers, composed and framed as such. Narratively they're diegetic in the sense that all the musical numbers are performed in the real world in a way that people in the real world would perform them -most of them are in the night club, but then there are a lot of mix cuts between those and what's happening out in the real world, allowing them to act as both Greek chorus or scene setter, while clearly being a musical number.

And unlike All That Jazz, which I had to order the physical blu-ray to see, Cabaret is easily rentable on streaming services and won the Oscar for its year for best picture (over The Godfather), implying it's cultural imprint is... well, high. There seemed to be enough people in this countdown that preferred non-classic musicals they would have gone this way. Guess I was wrong on guessing how well it would do.

ETA: An error on my part has been brought to my attention. I should have written won Fossie best director over Coppola for The Godfather. Or possibly I meant it swept the Oscars, with a notable exception of Best Picture for The Godfather (8 Oscars for Cabaret compared to 2 or 3 for The Godfather. At least that's what the quick google search is telling me). The general point of the cultural footprint still holds.

This is about where I expected to see Cabaret. It was No.8 on my list. It belongs in the Top-10 probably and it is. Good.
Now, The Lion King is gonna hurt not just because of my feelings about Disney Animated Musicals but because it was actually one of my least-liked Disney Animated Musicals. I endured it twice and I don't think I ever will again. But I am steeling myself for the inevitable.

I can careless if Lion King makes #1, I would rather have that then another Stanley Kubrick movie overshadowing the Number 1 or 2 spot once again. Will have to see when we get to the final 2 reveals .

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Cabaret was #40 on the MoFo Top 100 of the 1970s, #79 on the original MoFo Top 100, and #79 on the MoFo Top 100 Refresh.

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Cabaret was #5 on my ballot. So, that's two Bob Fosse films in my top five.

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1. All That Jazz
2. Dancer in the Dark
4. The Burden
5. Cabaret
6. Inside Llewyn Davis
7. The Young Girls of Rochefort
8. Top Hat
12. Duck Soup
15. My Fair Lady
16. Meet Me in St. Louis
17. The Music Man
18. Mary Poppins
20. The Nightmare Before Christmas
22. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Cabaret was my #18 pick.

I knew Cabaret was a super popular musical so I tried to watch it for this Countdown.

I maybe gave it an hour before I gave up on it, the music wasn't clicking and nothing seemed to be happening.

Then I looked up the Wikipedia plot summary and was like WHAT THE ****.

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Gaaaahh! You know you want 2001: ASO the Musical, complete with a singing and dancing Hal 9000.

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Cabaret is too much of a downer to make my list, but it has a few great songs.


How DARE anyone trash Liza! Liza Manelli has the voice of an angel, and a terrific personality.


Okay, she's no Judy Garland, but Christ, how many people are? 0 to 1.

Really? You can be careless?

You meant couldn't care less. If you could care less that implies you do care some. Which begs the question, how much less could you care?

I did not have Cabaret on my ballot, so time for another of my no-shows…


During their initial reign, The Beatles made two feature narrative films they participated in - A Hard Day’s Night (#23) and Help! - plus the animated Yellow Submarine (#72) where they just lent their music and the infamous documentary Let It Be. By contrast, Elvis Presley starred in THIRTY-ONE feature films, all but a couple of them Musicals, starting with Love Me Tender in 1956 and finishing with Change of Habit in 1969. That is an average of more than two a year, and for two of those years he was drafted into the U.S. Army and didn’t make any movies at all, which brings the average closer to three per year! With that many titles of course there are some stinkers, and even the better ones usually follow a pretty simple formula, especially those he cranked out in the 1960s. With so many to choose from I am not shocked that none of them rose high enough to make the Top 100. There isn’t really a clear consensus of what his best movie even is. Some say Jailhouse Rock or Love Me Tender, some will take his Western The Flaming Star, others prefer Viva Las Vegas or Blue Hawaii. For sure nobody’s favorite is It Happened at the World’s Fair or Clambake. But there are many of us who hail to the King in what was only his fourth flick, released just before he entered the Army…


King Creole (1958) was directed by Michael Curtiz, the Hollywood veteran who began his career in the Silent era and helmed such Talkie classics as Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Angels with Dirty Faces, and Mildred Pierce, as well as two Musicals that made this countdown in Yankee Doodle Dandy (#32) and White Christmas (#82). He was seventy-two when he made his Elvis movie, but still an effortless cinematic storyteller.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, King Creole is set in the steamy French Quarter of New Orleans. Elvis plays Danny Fisher, a nineteen-year-old who is trying to juggle a couple jobs to support his family while also finishing High School. He gets in a couple fights and drops out of school, winds mixed up with a minor street gang led by Vic Morrow. One of his jobs is a busboy at a bar and there he runs into a local gangster and pimp Maxie Fields (Walter Matthau) as well as one of his girls, Ronnie (Carolyn Jones). Of course there is also a “good girl” Danny is interested in, Nellie (Delores Hart). Oh, yeah…and he can sing a little, too.

Adapted from a Harold Robbins novel and filmed in glorious black & white by D.P. Russell Harlan (Red River, Rio Bravo, To Kill a Mockingbird) with excellent use of the Louisiana locations, the project was originally set to star James Dean - minus the singing parts - and was shelved when he died. Elvis’ acting skills are not to the level of James Dean, but he acquaints himself well with this grittier character, which is Hamlet compared to some of the Technicolor silliness to come in the 1960s.

I had it on my ballot at number twenty-three, so just a few points.


HOLDEN’S BALLOT
2. La La Land (#13)
3. Pennies from Heaven (#56)
4. Dancer in the Dark (#20)
5. A Hard Day’s Night (#23)
6. The Blues Brothers (#19)
7. That Thing You Do! (#31)
8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (#11)
10. The Commitments (#107)
11. This is Spın̈al Tap (#55)
12. Hearts Beat Loud (#101)
13. A Star is Born (#43)
14. Hair (#47)
15. Sing Street (#40)
16. Xanadu (#DNP)
17. Amadeus (#97)
18. Once (#25)
19. The Muppets (#DNP)
21. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (#69)
22. Little Shop of Horrors (#18)
23. King Creole (#DNP)
24. My Fair Lady (#10)
25. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (#74)

While on the topic of Cabaret, a musical which includes a healthy helping of Nazis, I'm glad we have our own resident arm band wearing member of the grammar sort in the ranks and on the lookout for crimes against the English language!

King Creole is a wonderful film. It's been years since I've seen it. Also I think the general consensus is that his most critically acclaimed film, for what that's worth, is Flaming Star which I liked a lot.

Also is Cabaret a film you don't care for or is it a film that you like, only you didn't include it on your ballet for strategic reasons because you figured it would easily make it toward the top of the list without your help?

I love King Creole. It was an oversight on my part that I did not consider the Elvis Canon.

I like Cabaret, but more for the songs than for the movie itself. I'm not surprised to see that it made the countdown, but I'm a little bit surprised that it made it this high.

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OPEN FLOOR.

Cabaret is a fine movie and will be one (if things go as I think) in the Top Ten to include Nazis. Who knew? It's been a while since I saw it but liked it quite a bit. Didn't vote for it.

#1. On the Town #93 (list proper)
#2. Holiday Inn #109 (NEAR MISS)
#5. The Blues Brothers #19 (list proper)
#6. Easter Parade #78 (list proper)
#7. Grease #9 (list proper)
#8. Meet Me in St. Louis #33 (list proper)
#9 Yankee Doodle Dandy #32 (list proper)
#10. Gigi #85 (list proper)
#12. Calamity Jane #84 (list proper)
#14. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers #71 (list proper)
#17. Mary Poppins #8
#18. The Muppet Movie #45 (list proper)
#25. Neptune's Daughter (one-pointer)

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